The Opening of the Pier

The Southeastern Advertiser, Saturday August 10, 1872
By this time the fact that Hastings has a Pier, and that the magnificent structure was formally opened by Lord Granville on Monday last, has been read by hundreds of thousand of people throughout the United Kingdom.  The daily press has been good enough to proclacim the important fact for us from one end of the kingdomt to the other, and by and bye [sic] the mails will carry to all parts - even to the bright and sunny land from which came the copper-coloured princes who graced the proceedings on Monday - the news, to make the pun which seems to be running riot from the mouths of us all, Lord Granville to the smallest urchin in our streets, that Hastings is no longer a pierless watering place.  This is not the place in which to attempt to cast the horoscope of the new Pier, and indeed, if it were, one would scarcely be disposed to take the position of the stars, or, in other words, the unfavourable character of the elements, at the time of what we may call its birth on Monday last, as an omen of the future…………If we had been but fortunate in getting a fine day, Monday would stand out as the brightest red-letter day in our annal -  a day which could fairly rank in importance with that on which the fact that we were one of the best drained towns in the kingdom trumpeted forth to the world.  ………………………….The weather-wise proved, unfortunately, to be anything but false prophets.  ……..  We could scarcely credit that all those elaborate preparations for rejoicing would be lost, that the bunting which floated so gaily from windows and from line across th thoroughfares, that the two hundred flagts which were so tasetefully arranged around the structure which was to be the great scene of action to-dfay, that the decorations which met one's eye here, there and everywhere, that all would positively only add to the general depression instead of lending an inspiring air to the scene……….  But at about ten o'clock the threatening rain came at last.  The sullen, wretched clouds, that had been lowering gloomily over us all the morning opened upon us, and down came the rain like a miniature deluge.

At ten o’clock we had lovely weather, but in the afternooon……..